Summary:
Union General Robert Schenck writes to General in Chief Henry Halleck in June, 1863, to speculate that Pennsylvania civilians confused a Union supply train escorted by cavalry en route to Chambersburg for Confederate troops, and a panic broke out as a result.

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Received 9.25 p. m.
H. W. Halleck,
Gen.-in-Chief:

Baltimore, Md.,

June 16, 1863.

I will intermit no possible preparations or exertions, but I still have some suspicion that it was my wagon train, sent from Martinsburg with some cavalry, via Williamsport, Hagerstown, and Chambersburg, that has alarmed all Pennsylvania and the country. I have been suggesting this since yesterday morning to Gen. Couch, from whom I now hear that the advance of the train has reached Harrisburg, and that the remainder--some 200 wagons--is now between Carlisle and Harrisburg. Tyler begins to think there is no force of the enemy at Halltown.

May not the body of them, having cleared the Valley and broken the railroad, have gone back to help fight Gen. Hooker? I submit the suggestion for what it is worth.

ROBT. C. SCHENCK,
Maj.-Gen.

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Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 27, Serial No. 45, Pages 158-159, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.